


1,800 Days

by pennilesspoet



Series: Snap Verse [2]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, POV Patrick Brewer, Temporary Character Death, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:46:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26739811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennilesspoet/pseuds/pennilesspoet
Summary: Snapshots of Patrick's life during the approximately 1,800 days between David's disappearance and his return.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Patrick Brewer/Original Character(s)
Series: Snap Verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1939390
Comments: 38
Kudos: 86





	1,800 Days

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! It's fairly important that you read the first part of this series before delving into this one. I promise this story will make a lot more sense if you do.
> 
> WARNING: There is a portion of this story that mentions a type of self-harm. If you wish to skip that section, it is titled Day 738.  
> There are also two very mild sexual situations mentioned, between Patrick and an OMC. Those are Days 1,002, and 1,756.

**Day 2**

He startles himself awake. He’s facedown on the sofa. His head is throbbing. His throat is dry and sore.

With a groan, he turns over, and picks up his phone. 4:30 a.m. There’s an unread text message. It’s from Rachel from last night.

_I’m so sorry, Patrick._

Her phone call came yesterday afternoon. He’d tried for hours to get a hold of his parents, to no avail. Desperate, he’d called Rachel. She was relieved to hear from him, and devastated to learn about David. He’d asked her to check in on his parents.

The last text from his mom was from three days ago, asking him to call her when he had a chance. He’d never gotten around to it.

He closes the text window. David’s face stares back at him. He’s wearing his wedding suit, and holding a flute of champagne, and he’s flush with happiness. 

They were married three months ago.

He drops his phone back onto the table and closes his eyes. He won’t be able to fall back asleep, but he isn’t ready to face the day just yet.

**Day 38**

He has been reading and re-reading the same article on his computer for a while now. The explanations and apologies ring hollow. He’s angry. Angry that these strangers with supernatural powers failed to protect them the way that they had promised to do. He doesn’t hear the door, so is startled when Stevie speaks.

“Have you eaten today?”

“Yeah,” Patrick replies with a shrug, eyes still staring blankly at the computer screen.

“Patrick.”

He turns to look at his friend. David’s best friend. She looks exhausted, but determined. There’s a plastic bag in her hand. He can smell tomato sauce.

“Come on,” Stevie gestures toward the kitchen table. She sets the bag in the center of the table and rips the bag open as Patrick settles in the chair across from her.

“There must be a way to bring them back,” Patrick says as Stevie opens the take-out container to reveal a large, gloopy piece of lasagna.

“I’m sure they’re working on it.” Stevie hands Patrick one of two white plastic forks.

“It’s already been so long. I wish they’d tell us more.” The lasagna is lukewarm. The sauce is too acidic. The noodles are overcooked. He swallows his bite with reluctance. His stomach churns.

“I’m sure they’ll tell us more when they know more,” Stevie shrugs. Patrick knows that she doesn’t think they are going to be able to fix it. He appreciates that she humors him.

They eat the rest of the lasagna in silence, the specter of David hovering between them.

**Day 182**

The door closes behind the customer, and the store is quiet again. She is the third person today to ask him for something they don’t carry. It’s frustrating, He looks around the store, at the rapidly dwindling merchandise. The last of their inventory is all out on the sales floor now.

Heather Warner was one of the people who disappeared. A handful of their other suppliers either disappeared, or lost someone very close to them. Everyone is reeling. Supplies are harder to come by. Nobody can afford expensive moisturizer right now.

He feels like he is failing David. 

The man he loves disappeared from his life in a flash, but their store, their baby, has been slowly dying for months. He doesn’t know how to stop it, but he has to try.

He has to try.

**Day 365**

He lays in bed, staring at the ceiling. He’s not sure why he thought today would be different.

He’d stood out on their back deck for most of the afternoon, staring at the spot where David had been standing one year ago, and let himself hope. Let himself hope that something might happen. A miracle, perhaps.

Of course, nothing happened. He hates himself for daring to hope.

**Day 738**

There is a bright light shining into his eyes. His head feels heavy. He’s laying on the kitchen floor, but doesn’t recall why.

“Patrick? Hey, there you are. Can you tell me what you took?” There is a man crouched over him. He’s checking Patrick’s pulse.

“Wha?” His throat hurts and his mouth feels dry and tacky.

“Did you take something? Drink something?”

He had come into the kitchen to get a glass of water. His head was spinning. 

“He just wouldn’t wake up. I didn’t know what to do,” Stevie is talking to the man - a paramedic? She looks so upset.

“I’m just dizzy,” Patrick mumbles. He tries to sit up. Everything is spinning.

“Sir, just stay where you are. We’re going to move you onto a stretcher.”

“I’m okay,” he tries to sit up again.

“You’re not,” Stevie snaps. Her small hand presses down on his shoulder. “And you’re not allowed to leave me here alone, do you understand?”

He nods, and then everything is fuzzy again.

**~~@~~**

He wakes in a bed.

It’s cold, and it smells like antiseptic. He turns his head. Stevie is curled up on a chair, her arms wrapped around her legs, her chin resting on her knees. She’s glaring at him.

“Stevie-”

“Dehydration and low blood sugar. From not eating. That’s not okay, Patrick.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just been a rough week,” Patrick croaks. He can feel the IV line, heavy on the back of his hand.

“Understatement,” Stevie snorts. “But you have to stop telling people - telling yourself - that you’re fine. You’re _not fine_.”

“I know,” Patrick whispers. He looks down at his hand, pale and thin.

“The doctor was talking about some support groups. She said that it might help you to talk to people who have been through the same thing, but who don’t know - um. Don’t know your friends and family. Easier to open up to strangers, or something.”

He’ll try it. He’ll try anything to help get him out of this black hole. Anything to avoid seeing Stevie look at him like that again.

**Day 752**

The group is small; only six people, plus the therapist. Everyone looks sad, exhausted, and resigned. They go around the room, and tell their stories one by one. All variations of his own story; losing someone they love, and not able to figure out how to move on from it.

The man sitting across from him is tall, with wavy, light brown hair, and electric blue eyes. He talks about his husband, and their relatively new marriage, and it takes everything Patrick has not to stand up and walk away. This story is too familiar; it hits too close to home. 

But he stays. And listens. And by the end of that first hour, he feels a little bit less alone.

**Day 814**

He’d forced himself out of bed this morning. Forced himself to shower and put on clothes, and drive to Elmdale to meet Ben for coffee before the meeting. 

Ben is already there when he arrives. A steaming cup of tea is waiting for him as well.

“I don’t know if I can go today,” he says without preamble. They’ve both said things like this before; they’ve both pushed one another to keep going.

“That means you should definitely come,” Ben replies with a warm smile.

“It’s David’s birthday today. It’s the anniversary of our first kiss. I feel like I’m crawling out of my skin.” Patrick’s hands are trembling. He doesn’t dare pick up his tea.

“Just walk over with me,” Ben replies softly. He lays a hand over Patrick’s. It’s warm and soft, but it’s not David’s hand, and Patrick fights the urge to flinch away.

He stays for the meeting, and afterward, it hurts just a little less than it did before.

**Day 979**

“Zachary hated this place,” Ben says. They are seated on a park bench in Elm Glen, watching a family of ducks swim across the small, man-made pond. 

“Was it the ducks?” Patrick asks. He runs a supportive hand over Ben’s leg. He knows how hard it is to talk about the ones they’ve lost.

“All birds, really. I think maybe his mom let him watch some Hitchcock films a little too young.”

Patrick chortles at that, then squeezes Ben’s leg. On their walk back to Ben’s apartment, Patrick tells him about David’s fear of moths and butterflies. It feels nice to be able to share these little things about David that Patrick loved so much. 

**Day 1,002**

Ben slides into him slowly, then drops his head onto Patrick’s shoulder.

It’s the first time it’s been like this. Sex between them has always been rushed and rough. Patrick likes how impersonal that felt. He likes that Ben doesn’t judge him for saying the wrong name sometimes. They’re both thinking of someone else most of the time.

Ben’s large hand slides around and up his chest, and pulls Patrick back toward him. He slowly pumps out and in, his breath shaky and damp on Patrick’s cheek.

Patrick closes his eyes, and loses himself in the security of being in Ben’s arms, of being filled by Ben. When he comes several minutes later, it’s Ben he’s thinking about.

He waits until Ben pulls out and makes his way to the bathroom before letting out a silent sob. 

Later that night, he curls into Ben’s side, and tries to feel proud that he is actually able to move on.

**  
Day 1,200**

He’s been reluctant to clear out David’s things, but with Ben spending more and more time here, Patrick feels like he should at least clean out David’s nightstand. It’s easier than he thought it would be to throw away some things. The candy David thought Patrick didn’t know about. A half empty bottle of lube. A mostly-empty matchbook.

But the notebook he picks up with reverence. The leather is supple and warm; soft, from being carried in David’s large, beautiful hands. Slowly, carefully, Patrick opens it. There are sketches and notes. David’s thoughts and dreams, written here in black and white. His love for Patrick, for the store, for the town, bleeds off of the pages. Patrick has to take several deep, measured breaths and has to employ the exercises his therapist taught him to continue.

Toward the back of the book, there is a sketch of a kitchen. Their kitchen. David had written notes in the margins. Exacting instructions and visions for his perfect space. Patrick fights back another sob, and picks up his phone.

**~~@~~**

Ronnie is already at the cafe when he arrives for their meeting. She is playing with her coffee mug, staring into space. Patrick slides into the booth seat across from her silently.

“Patrick,” Ronnie says, with an echo of the colder tone she’d used with him _Before_.

“Thanks for meeting me, Ronnie,” Patrick replies. After a beat of silence, he carefully puts David’s notebook on the table between them. He flips it open to the page he needs and folds his hands in front of the book.

“This is the kitchen he wanted. I want - I want to try and replicate it as close to this as we can.”

Ronnie studies the sketch for a long moment, her face revealing nothing of what she is thinking. But when she finally looks up at Patrick, her eyes are suspiciously shiny.

“It’ll take me a lot longer to source some of the materials. You know how things are these days.”

“Yes,” Patrick nods. “Take as long as you need. I just want it to be - the way he envisioned it.”

Ronnie pulls out her phone, and takes several photos of the pages in front of her. Off of Patrick’s look, she smirks.

“You were never going to let me walk out of here with that entire notebook.”

“No, I guess you’re right,” Patrick chuckles. Ronnie gives him a curt nod and slides out of the booth.

“Thank you, Ronnie,” he says, not looking up from his clasped hands.

She lays her hand heavily on his shoulder for a moment, then leaves without another word.

**  
Day 1756**

Ben’s hand runs up his side as Patrick settles on top of him.

They’re sprawled out on the sofa, pretending to pay attention to the World War I documentary that Ben has put on, while lazily making out. They’re full from the hearty stew that Patrick made, so they move slowly, running warm hands over one another, letting their arousal build between them without haste. Ben nips at his shoulder lightly, and Patrick tilts his head to the side, and lets out a sigh as his body responds to Ben’s touch.

He could be happy like this. He is happy - or as happy as he will ever be again. 

Ben presses his hips upward, and Patrick takes the hint. He snakes a hand under the elastic band of Ben’s pajama pants. Ben gasps out Patrick’s name. His voice is rough, and Patrick feels it in his bones.

This is enough. This is all he needs.  
  


**Day +1**

Patrick stands on the front lawn of their home, calling out to David as he walks away. He hardly registers the cold morning dew on his bare legs as his knees hit the ground. Ben’s t-shirt hangs off of him, and it smells like Ben’s spicy cologne. He feels disoriented, and dizzy. 

“Patrick. Come on, let’s go back inside.” 

Strong arms under his shoulders lift him to standing. He turns and collapses against Ben’s chest. Ben wraps his arms around him.

“I can’t - I can’t believe this is happening,” Patrick sobs.

Ben leads him inside and deposits him on the sofa. He wraps a blanket around his shoulders and walks into the kitchen. Patrick can hear him starting the kettle. He looks at the map on the dining room wall. Lists of names stare back at him. Did everyone come back?

He’s startled from his thoughts by Ben, who sets a mug of tea down in front of him and takes a seat on the sofa. Patrick ignores the tea and falls into Ben’s waiting arms. 

“What do we do now?” Patrick whispers.

“I don’t know,” Ben buries his nose into Patrick’s curls, and kisses his head softly.

  
  



End file.
